Collection Agency Drafted Payment Ahead Of Schedule

[jv123m]

I'm in California and I agreed w/ a Collection Agency to set up automatic draft payments from my account and on the very 1st transaction they tried pulling out the money a day before and becuase of that their payment got rejected and I got charged w/ a NSF. I called them up the day I found out to complain about the bank fee and they agreed to reduce the amount of the total balance to compensate for the fee I got from my bank. With in a mth of that I tried calling to pay the acct in full and now the only way they will report the acct "paid in full" is if I pay the total amount including the amount they were suppose to waive (the only way the agree to accept the balance minus the bank fee for the NSF is by reporting the acct "settled")... i'm going to all this trouble to come up w/ the money and I just don't think it's right for them to have me pay the NSF fee on top of the total amount of the acct becuase they took out the money ahead of time. I spoke w/ the general manager about this and she was being extremly rude and refused to refund or credit me the NSF as promissed. Is there anything I could do in this case?

[usedbranflakes]

You have two choices:
1) Find a consumer lawyer. Most will spend 15 minutes with you to tell you if you have a case. This meeting is generally over the phone or in person and many attorneys don't charge for it or charge a small fee.

2) File a complaint with the Attorney General for your state and for the state the collector operates in.

Cashing a pre-dated check / post-dated check early is against many state laws. Some states do not even allow this practice in collections for the reason that many collectors violate the trust with the consumer or had violated it in the past. Few people challenge these wrongs because they owed the money and it is one less monkey on their back. More people need to hold these agencies to task and hold the agency's feet to the fire.

[aaron]

This scenario didn't involve a post-dated check. It was a transfer directly from the account, which they are described as having attempted to make a day early.

How was the date designated for the transfers? Was all of this in writing?

[usedbranflakes]

Aaron -

...and that's why you are the lawyer and I am not =^).

In West Virginia, back in the day when I collected, the automatic drafts were actually checks that our computer printed and we deposited. At the time these had the same bearing as a postdated check. ...but nowadays they are just an electronic transfer. Thanks for getting my ship pointed with the wind and not into the wind!

Cheers,

UBF